Читать книгу An Obscure Apostle - Eliza Orzeszkowa - Страница 6

On the summits of civilisation the various branches of the great tree of humanity are united and harmonised. Education is the best apostle of universal brotherhood. It polishes the roughness without and cuts the overgrowth within; it permits of the development, side by side and with mutual respect, of the natural characteristics of different individuals; it prunes even religious beliefs produced by the needs of the time, and reduces them to their simplest expression, the result being that people can live without antipathies.

Quite a different state of affairs exists in the social valley unlighted by the sun of knowledge. There people are the same to-day as they were in the remote centuries. Time, while making tombs for the dead people, has not buried with them the forms which, being continually regenerated, create among amazed societies unintelligible anachronisms. Here exist distinctions which, with sharp edges, push back everything which belongs not to them; here are crawling moral and physical miseries which are unknown, even by name, to those who have reached the summits; here is a gathering of dark figures, standing out against the background of the world, resembling vague outlines of sphinxes keeping guard over the graveyards; here are widely-spread petrifications of faiths, sentiment and customs, testifying by their presence that geniuses of many centuries can simultaneously rule the world. Patricians and plebeians changed their formal parts. The first became defenders and propagators of equality; the second stubbornly hold to distinctions. And if in times of yore oppression was directed by those who stood high against those who, in dust and humility, swarmed in the depths, in our times, from the depths arise unhealthy exhalations, which poison life and make the roads of civilisation difficult to the chosen ones.

Such unfortunate valleys, rendering many people unhappy, separating the rest of the world by a chain of high mountains, exist in Israelitic society, as well as in the society of other nations, and there they are even more numerous than elsewhere. Their too long existence is the result of many historical causes and characteristics of the race. To-day they constitute a phenomenon; attracting the thinker and the artist by their great influence and the originality of their colouring, composed of mysterious shadows and bright lights. But who is familiar with them and who studies them? Even those who, on account of the same blood and traditions, should be attracted toward these localities, plunged in darkness, send there neither painters nor apostles—sometimes they do not even believe in their existence. For instance, what a surprise it would be to Israelitic society, gathered in the largest city in the country, composed of cultivated men and of women, who by their beauty, refinement and wit are in no way inferior to the women of other nations: what a surprise it would be to this society, gowned in purple and fine linen, if somebody would all at once describe Szybow and what is transpiring there!

Szybow? On what planet is it, and if on ours, what population has it?

The people there, are they white, black or brown?

Well then, readers, I am going to make you acquainted with that deep—very deep—social valley. Not long ago there was enacted there an interesting drama worthy of your kind glance—of your heart's strong throb and a moment of long, sad thought. But in order to bring out facts and figures they must be thrown against the background on which they have risen and developed, and in the deep perspectives of which there are elements which are the causes of their existence. Therefore you must permit me, before raising the curtain which hides the first scenes of the drama, to tell you in brief the history of the small town.